


Better to Give

by Joking611



Series: Cari'ssi'mi Drabbles [78]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:20:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28521549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joking611/pseuds/Joking611
Summary: Shepard brings a version of Christmas to Thessia
Relationships: Female Shepard/Liara T'Soni
Series: Cari'ssi'mi Drabbles [78]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/624863
Comments: 17
Kudos: 61
Collections: MEFFW Secret Santa Exchange 2020





	Better to Give

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LtLime23](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LtLime23/gifts).



> The prompt was "Something cute and fluffy - doesn't have to be Xmas related" and for the first time, I actually wrote a holiday story for the Holiday Gift Exchange!
> 
> Technically in my Cari'ssi'mi continuity. You don't need to know it, as I chose to use no non-canon characters in the story (although Iadri is mentioned).
> 
> The timing would probably be after the second Reaper War.

Shepard reached out, eyes glistening as she tenderly cupped Liara’s cheek. “Please don’t go. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” The look of desperate longing only intensified as she held Liara’s gaze.

Liara reached up and captured her bondmate’s wrist, and gently pulled her hand away with an exasperated sigh. “Goddess, Shepard. Now I understand why the Council was often so reluctant to believe you. Are many humans so dramatic?”

“Nah,” grinned Shepard as she flopped back onto her pillow. “That’s all me.” She scooted away to give herself room to stretch. “But if it convinces you to stay in bed…” She glanced back at Liara hopefully.

Liara gave her a look that could make a matriarch flinch. “We have already remained in bed later than I had planned, Shepard.”

“Bet I could convince you to stay a little longer.”

Liara rolled her eyes, and then leaned over and kissed her bondmate on the nose. “ _That_ is something you’ve proven many times, Shepard. However, we have obligations to attend to.” She rose from the bed, looking back at a Shepard who remained decidedly immobile. “Surely you have not forgotten that this was your idea.”

“After all this time?” Shepard’s smile carried a hint of mischief. “No, I haven’t forgotten.”

“But…?”

“You have to admit, when it comes to exchanging gifts, you take the ‘what do you get for the girl who has everything’ challenge to the extreme.”

“As you prefer by far to give of yourself, of what you have, than to accept from another,” Liara reminded gently.

“Well,” Shepard looked away, unable to refute the accusation. “Sometimes I just-“

“It’s all right, Shepard,” interrupted Liara. “We don’t need to talk about it right now.”

“Oh good,” replied Shepard. “I know how these discussions end.”

“Oh?”

“Perhaps this is something you should discuss with Iadri,” Shepard imitated the tone Liara often used when trying to get Shepard to discuss something bothering her with the House clinician.

“Is this something you would like to discuss with Iadri?” Asked Liara hopefully.

“You know I hate therapy almost as much as I hate healing melds.”

“You’ve made that quite clear, Shepard,” answered Liara with a smile. “You still benefit from both, however.”

“I know, I know,” pouted Shepard as she also left the bed. “But not today.” She waved an arm towards the door. “Go on, I’ll be down in a minute.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

“You know I love you kid, but this thing you do is weird even for you.”

Shepard winced as she drove the skycar towards Armali, even as she could sense Liara smirking at Aethyta’s comment in the back seat while she worked on her omni-tool.

“It’s not weird,” she answered defensively. “It’s traditional.”

“Traditional on Earth you mean,” countered Aethyta. “I looked it up when you started this inane thing. You’re supposed to be Nichol, the god of gifts and winter? You’ve got every right to have an ego, no argument there, but goddess might be taking it a bit far, don’t you think?”

“Nicholas was a saint, Father,” corrected Liara from the back seat as she commented for the first time. “And you know very well that Shepard draws no small fulfillment in doing for others. Armali may be close to fully restored, but Shepard’s annual endowments have become _our_ tradition.”

“And as for the winter part,” Shepard waved at the light mist the car was flying through. “This is nothing compared to a Mindoiri blizzard. Or even Earth.” She glanced hopefully back at Liara. “You know, I’ve never taken you snowboarding. I bet-“

“Absolutely not, Shepard,” replied Liara without looking up.

“But the last time that we-“

“No.”

“Fine.” Shepard huffed before returning her attention to Aethyta. “Anyway, It’s not enough to rebuild, you have to give people hope. Making sure that families had food and shelter was a good start, but their kids needed clothes, books, and toys too.”

“At least it kept you from adopting more strays.”

“Thank the goddess,” whispered Liara.

“Hey!” Shepard looked back at Liara again. “You’ve brought more people to the estate than I have.”

Liara looked up from her ‘tool for the first time. “Shepard, you have a krogan who calls you ‘mom’.”

“Yeah,” she agreed with a grin. “That is pretty cool.”

“I do have to agree with her on that one,” added Aethyta.

Liara sighed as she closed her eyes. “Are we there yet?”

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

“You see Father? They adore her.”

Fortunately the rain had stopped, allowing Liara and Aethyta to observe the crowd from the highest level of the skyball field.

Armali was closer to a complete recovery than any other province on Thessia. Even so, the university had the only facility large enough to accommodate Shepard’s annual event, and although it coincided with no official Thessian holiday, turnout grew larger every year.

Thousands of blue faces pressed around the commander, who was easy to pick out not just because of her hair, but also the pointed red hat that she insisted she wear. The children were particularly well behaved for having to wait in queue as long as they did. They were assisted by parents and huntresses, keeping the youngsters in order so they arrived for their interaction with Shepard at the same time one of her assistants delivered the gift destined for a particular child.

All in all, it was a logistical nightmare. Finding out from parents and guardians what a child would most like, and then making sure that an item would be matched to that specific child, one of thousands that would come to see Shepard that day. It made fighting the Reapers seem easy.

 _“It isn’t like we have a choice,”_ Shepard confided to Liara once the current process had become codified. _“It’d be easier if we could let the kids ask me directly, but I don't have eight tiny reindeer, do I?”_

Liara had agreed that she indeed did not, while also having no idea what she was agreeing to.

“And she adores the attention,” replied Aethyta. “Good thing she has no interest in politics, or the matriarchs would be screwed,” she added with the tone of someone who would most likely be the one to defend Shepard from the Conclave.

“She adores doing for others, Father. If I can help her in this, knowing how happy it makes her, why shouldn’t I?”

“You two and your grand gestures.” Aethyta looked out over the arena, where nearly every child in Armali had come to receive a gift from the woman who’d saved the galaxy more than once. “And to think Nezzy kept me happy just by wearing lingerie.” She paused. “Or not, as the case may be.”

“I did not need to know that, Father.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

It was nearly dusk when the three returned home.

“They don’t _need_ this, you know,” said Aethyta as they came in for a landing at the estate.

“Are you back to that again?” Shepard opened the hatch and helped Liara out of the car as Aethyta climbed out the other side. “They enjoy it. I enjoy it. What’s the problem?”

“It can’t be cheap, for one.”

“It wasn’t at the beginning,” acknowledged Liara as she started towards the residence. “Even today, it is no small expense. But now it is shared across several of the Houses in the province. Shepard may have started the tradition, but it has taken on a life of its own.”

“Life of its own, my ass,” replied Aethyta. “I bet the matriarchs were just hoping they’d get a chance to sit on Santa’s lap.”

“Wha-“ Shepard turned sharply to Aethyta, shocked at the reference coming from her father in law.

The distraction was why she nearly knocked Liara over when the maiden had stopped just inside the front door.

“Shepard…” She whispered.

The grand foyer, normally well lit at this time of day, had been darkened. The various chairs and tables that normally occupied the space were nowhere to be seen. Instead, the space was dominated by a fifteen meter Douglas fir, blanketed in what was easily thousands of lights, filling the the room in an ever changing rainbow of colors.

Liara and Shepard took a few steps forward through the artificial snow that covered the floor, stopping to take it all in. The tree, the snow, the pile of ornately wrapped gifts were all nearly too much to comprehend.

“Merry Christmas, Dumbasses.”

The pair turned to Aethyta in shock.

She looked back in mock offense. “What? I can do grand gestures too, you know.”


End file.
